Maffra cheese makes its mark

It's believed Maffra in Victoria's Gippsland region was the first Australian town to invest in a large scale cheese manufacturing facility back in the 1870s.

This tradition of producing fine quality cheese continues today with Maffra Cheese taking out a swag of Australian and international awards in the past 18 months with their hand-made quality cheddars.

The current Maffra Cheese factory was established 30 years ago, and prides itself on using milk from a herd of heritage breed cows with just 250 milkers.

Reporter Kath Sullivan gets a tour of the factory with cheese maker Sam Riggall to find out the secret to their success.

"We always set out in this business to produce a world class product and something that wasn't a replica of what the British do and we think we've done that," he says.

"There's some very distinctive features to the way we process and mature our products here that we don't think many people do around the world so yeh, a bit different but it works."

The Maffra Cheese factory has taken out grand champion cheese at the Australian Grand Dairy Awards; won gold at the world cheese championships; and been named Australia's best cheese at the recent International Cheese Awards in the United Kingdom.